DC Vertigo has unfortunately been discontinued as an imprint under the DC umbrella, with all of the new series for mature readers and reprints of things which were originally published under Vertigo being moved to just DC as a whole thanks to a restructuring which seeks to get all of the parts of the company unified.
As fans lament the death of DC Vertigo, it's very easy to forget just why Vertigo was so important. With tons of movie adaptations of multiple Vertigo titles and still more in the works, any fan of comics should most likely get themselves more acquainted with exactly what the imprint gave us in a time where a lot of comics were heavily censored. Here are 10 things about Vertigo fans may have forgotten about with the times.
10 A Lot Of The Classics Were Cultivated By A Woman
Karen Berger was the person responsible for the overall output of authors on the DC Vertigo label when it began, editing and putting into publishable form the work of luminaries ranging from Grant Morrison to Neil Gaiman.
The fact that she isn't talked about more frequently as one of the more powerful women in the history of the comics industry is frankly disappointing. Eventually, she had created so many comics that fiction she had worked on became known as part of the Bergerverse.
9 The First Year Was Prolific
While a lot of people assume that the work that's made DC Vertigo famous was released over a number of years, there were a good few works the imprint is perhaps best known for that came out during the first year of its existence. \
Comics like Hellblazer, Swamp Thing, The Sandman, and Doom Patrol were given new life during the seminal moments of the label. The first comic published was Neil Gaiman's Death: The High Cost Of Living.
8 Thanks, Comic Code Authority
While the Comics Code Authority (established in 1954 by the Comics Magazine Association Of America) wasn't ever made law and was instead founded so that there wouldn't be governmental regulation on comics sales, it quickly turned into a form of censorship.
So that stories with a darker subject matter didn't have to align, DC Vertigo was founded to ensure readers knew what they were getting into, and could still read these kinds of comics.
7 A Lot Of The British Writers Started At 2000 A.D.
2000 A.D. is a comic publisher located in England. 2000 A.D. is perhaps best known for their comic Judge Dredd, which has had 2 different film adaptations and a decent amount of movies released that rely heavily on ideas the comic is known for.
People like Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore got their start at 2000 A.D. as a lot of amateur writers do. The first test is usually for the aspiring writer to submit a Judge Dredd script.
6 Lovecraft
One of the more interesting releases that Vertigo has put out which has largely been forgotten by fans is Lovecraft, a graphic novel that's based around the life of the author, with an interesting twist.
Lovecraft is a biographical graphic novel with a bit of artistic license taken, based on a screenplay that never saw the big screen. The novel takes as fact that all of the Cthulhu Mythos is actually fact, and we follow H.P. Lovecraft as he navigates the horror.
5 Vertigo Crime Was A Thing
While Vertigo is perhaps most well-known for genres of speculative fiction including horror, fantasy, and sci-fi, there are stories that are more grounded which contain mature themes that were a perfect fit for Vertigo, like the stories published by the ill-fated Vertigo Crime.
It was planned to be a label which included black-and-white, gritty stories, but only actually lasted from 2009 to 2011, when it was dissolved.
4 The Relaunch Didn't Go Too Well
Unfortunately, the last years of DC Vertigo were littered with a number of issues, from allegations of sexual harassment centering around various writers and artists, a number of new assignments as editor after Karen Berger announced she'd be leaving.
There were even more, with announcements of new series that various people and groups had complaints about, including a comic in which Jesus is roommates with a superhero.
3 Gaiman's Best Known Works Were Bestsellers
Neil Gaiman might be known to the general public for television series like Good Omens and American Gods, and perhaps his novel Coraline which got an adaptation thanks to Henry Selick, but the series he cut his teeth on, The Sandman was one of the launch titles for Vertigo, a revamping of an older franchise.
It got so popular that during the restructuring, there was to be a sub imprint composed of mainly Sandman universe stories.
2 It's Technically Still Around
Although the dissolution of DC Vertigo was pretty disappointing news for pretty much any fan who's into graphic novels and comics aimed at adolescents and adults, it's more or less still in existence, at least in spirit.
The imprint is gone after the reunification that DC decided to go with a few years back, but now there's DC Black. They have a ton of more mature Batman offerings, a Sandman line, and a horror comic series to choose from thus far.
1 Grant Morrison Revitalized Doom Patrol
Grant Morrison took over on the comic Doom Patrol in 1987, and with it, the comic was released from the harsh constraints of the Comics Code Authority that had previously held it back from its true potential.
The CCA wasn't the only thing holding the series back though, because when Grant Morrison took over, he introduced characters who were more outlandish than the already zany characters in the comic. The Doom Patrol television show uses tons of elements from Morrison's run.